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WFTO-TV
WFTO-TV, virtual and UHF digital channel 24, is an Independent station serving the Liberty City/Alderney City Broadcast Area. WFTO is owned by Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation, operating as part of a triopoly between independent station WRBL (channel 4) and YesNet-owned station WTEE (channel 55). WFTO serves as the main east-coast flagship station of Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation. WFTO-TV's studios are located in Star Junction, Algonquin and it currently shares it's Broker-based transmitter facilities with sister station WRBL (channel 4). Station History WFTO-TV was founded on December 17th, 1994 by media mogul Victor Willis III, but signed on nearly two years later on July 1st, 1996 at 8 pm eastern. When the station originally signed on, it signed on as an independent. WFTO’s inaugural program was Dirty Harry starring Clint Eastwood after airing a countdown clock since midnight followed by archived footage of Apollo 8’s ''launch; this was inspired by MTV’s launch. Programming that aired initially aired on WFTO were reruns of older sitcoms (such as ''Dobie Gillis, I Love Lucy, The Three Stooges and The Andy Griffith Show, the latter of which still airs today as of September 2015), classic movies, children’s and religious programs. WFTO’s owner and GM Victor Willis originally opted not to form a news department for the station, fearing competition from then FOX affiliate WLFO as well as WB affiliate WLCT, but eventually WFTO premiered a 10 o'clock newscast on Thursday, May 21st, 1998 titled 24 NewsPulse @ Ten. In 2000, WFTO, formed a 2 hour morning news show titled 24 NewsPulse Morning Edition from 7 am to 9 am. On September 11th, 2001, WFTO aired nonstop coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center by extending their morning news program to 11 am that morning and airing nonstop CNN Headline News coverage. WFTO also extended their 10 pm newscast to one hour that day. This practice was done for one whole week before the schedule was reverted back to its regular format. Due to low ratings on their newscasts, WFTO made expansion to their news department starting in 2004. These expansion would continue until 2010. WFTO started by expanding their morning newscast to 3 hours, from 6 am to 9 am. WFTO also added in a 6 pm newscast that aired from Monday to Friday. This newscast was now directly competing with WEHK (NBC), WLIX (ABN), WLFO (FOX), WLIB (CBS), and WELC (ABC) In 2005, WFTO expanded their newscasts to weekends: starting with 24 NewsPulse Morning Edition which aired Saturday and Sunday Mornings from 7 am to 10 am and adding a 10pm Newscast on both Saturday and Sunday Evenings. Beginning in 2006, WFTO made more expansions with their news department by adding a one hour, 4:00 pm newscast, a half hour 5:00 pm newscast, a half hour noon newscast and pushing their morning newscast back one hour earlier, now airing in a 4 hour time span from 5-9 am. In 2007, the 5 pm and the 6 pm newscasts were now shown on weekends. Also in 2007, as a way to expand its news coverage, WFTO bought and used a Bell LongRanger 206L newsgathering helicopter called Chopper 24. In 2008, 2 new locally produced shows were put on the air. One of which was a one hour public affairs talk show called Your Voice, Your City airing on Sunday Mornings and a 30 minute sports program which airs on Sunday Nights titled Sports Blitz Sunday. In 2010, WFTO upgraded news programming and programming to HD and unveiled a new set, logo, graphics and music package. WFTO made even more expansions starting with the morning news cast; expanding it to 5 hours, beginning at 4 am and ending at 9 am. Expansions were also made to other news casts on WFTO: The noon newscast was extended to one hour, the 5 and 6 pm newscasts were extended to one hour, the 10 pm newscast was extended from 30 minutes to one hour and adding a new 11:00 pm newscast. In 2013, WFTO extended their morning newscast to 6 hours from 4-10 am, directly competing with WLFO. The 6th hour of the morning newscast was a lifestyle program titled On Location with Lillian Sharma. This program, as the title states, was not filmed in a news set, rather so “on location” such as at Middle Park. This program was cancelled in September 2014 due to Lillian’s departure from WFTO and to make way for the premiere of The Meredith Vieira Show. Beginning on June 1st, 2015, WFTO re branded as "The 'FTO 24" and unveiled a new logo. Despite these changes, programming and news operation as it is will not change. The last program to use the old logo was Leverage airing at 2 am on Monday Morning, June 1st, followed by the usual five hour block of morning news. The first program that used the new logo was Rachael Ray airing at 9 am on Monday Morning, June 1st. Along with the branding changes, WFTO added a new network: Escape, which airs programming directed to women aged 25-54 years old airing on digital subchannel 24.4. WFTO signed an agreement with HTN Communications to air all of their syndicated football, basketball and hockey games during their respective seasons. Along with the agreement, WFTO will air the annual CHL Playoffs and Finals (also supplied by HTN Communications) through at least 2021. In the event that these programs will air, WFTO will transfer regularly scheduled programming over to WFTO-DT3. In late 2015, WFTO's owners, Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation, purchased local station and former Argosy Network affiliate WTEE and has since converted the station to a full time translator station for WFTO. However starting in July, WTEE will no longer operate as a translator station for WFTO. Instead, WTEE along with several other Berfield-owned Argosy affiliates across the US will operate as separate independent stations airing a mix of older and newer sitcoms, dramas, movies, etc. WTEE also has plans of entering a news-share agreement with WFTO which will result in a straight from the ground up news operation using WFTO’s news staff. Plans were underway to develop a full time translator of WFTO for Carcer City, Liberty, however those plans have since been terminated. On December 28th, 2015, WFTO made an agreement with Sabana American Broadcast Holdings and ABN Domestic Television Corporation to allow WFTO to air UBC programming on the station's digital subchannel, 24.5. For a brief period of time in 2016, WFTO's 24.6 subchannel carried an audio simulcast of radio sister station, WJSM-FM. As of June 2016, that subchannel is currently airing color bars. It was announced on June 3, 2016 that 24.6 will become an affiliate of the newly formed Country Music Network channel. It is set to affiliate with the new network on July 1st. On June 24, 2016, WFTO announced that they would carry 3 affiliates on their xx.7 subchannel: GetTV, Z Channel, and MyTV. GetTV specializes in classic television programs and feature films from the Sony Pictures library. Z Channel specializes in the art of cinema and showcases feature films. MyTV is a general entertainment format network specializing in Americanized versions of television series from the UK and from Australia owned as a joint venture between Adelphia Communications Corporation and Disney-ABC Domestic Television. MyTV is expected to have a morning newscast and a nightly newscast. On August 3, 2016, WFTO added the newly formed Couch Potato Television network to it's xx.8 subchannel. Couch Potato specializes in classic sitcoms and dramas from the 1950s-'90s, much like competing network, Antenna TV, which WFTO also airs programs from. News/Station Presentation Current On-Air Staff Jeff Inglewood - News Director * Gurdeep Ahluwalia - anchor; weekday mornings "News 24 First Edition" and "News 24 DayBreak"; also reporter * Steve Anthony - anchor; weekday mornings "News 24 In The Morning" * Pooja Handa - anchor; weekday mornings "News 24 In The Morning" * Stephen LeDrew - anchor; weekdays "News 24 Live at Noon"; also host of "Your Voice. Your City" * Stephanie Smyth - anchor; weeknights "News 24 First at Four" and "News 24 Live at Five"; also Managing Editor and Breaking News Anchor * Nathan Downer - anchor; weeknights "News 24 First at Four" and "News 24 Live at Five"; also reporter * Deborah Allen - anchor; weeknights "News 24 More News at Seven" (on WRBL) (formerly of WXTR) * George Lagogianes - anchor; weeknights "News 24 Prime Time News at Nine" * Kyle Christie - anchor; weeknights "News 24 Live at Six", "News 24 Live at Ten" and "The Night Team" * Jee-Yun Lee - anchor; weeknights "News 24 Live at Six", "News 24 Live at Ten" and "The Night Team" * Jamie Gutfreund - anchor; weekend mornings "News 24 First Edition Weekend", "News 24 DayBreak Weekend" and "News 24 In The Morning Weekend" * Travis Dhanaraj - anchor; weekend mornings "News 24 First Edition Weekend", "News 24 DayBreak Weekend", "News 24 In The Morning Weekend" and "News 24 Live at Noon Weekend" * Nick Dixon - anchor; weekend evenings "News 24 Live at Six", "News 24 Live at Ten" and "The Night Team" 24/7 StormLab Weather Meteorologists * Kyler Watts - meteorologist; weekday mornings "News 24 First Edition", "News 24 DayBreak" and "News 24 In The Morning" * Kelsey Jackson - meteorologist; weekdays "News 24 Live at Noon", "News 24 First at Four" and "News 24 Live at Five" * Chris Jordan - chief meteorologist (AMS Seal of Approval); weeknights "News 24 Live at Six", "News 24 Live at Ten" and "News 24 Live at Eleven" * Jill Colton - meteorologist; weekend mornings "News 24 First Edition Weekend", "News 24 DayBreak Weekend", "News 24 In The Morning Weekend" and "News 24 Live at Noon Weekend" * Patricia Jaggernauth - meteorologist; weekend evenings "News 24 Live at Six Weekend", "News 24 Live at Ten Weekend" and "News 24 Live at Eleven Weekend" Sports Blitz * Ken Reid - sports director; weeknights "News 24 Live at Ten" and "News 24 Live at Eleven" * Devon Soltendieck - sports reporter; weekend evenings "News 24 Live at Ten Weekend" and "News 24 Live at Eleven Weekend"; also weeknight reporter (see below) Current On-Air Reporters/Staff * Andrea Hartling - general assignment reporter * Karman Wong - general assignment reporter * Jackie Crandles - general assignment reporter * Diana Petrucci - general assignment reporter; also assignment editor * Arda Zakarian - general assignment reporter * Omar Sachedina - general assignment reporter * Amber MacArthur - general assignment reporter * Courtney Heels - general assignment reporter * Cristina Tenaglia - general assignment reporter; also host of "Hot Property" * Cam Woolley - on-site morning traffic reporter; also host of "Know Your Rights" * Sue Sgambati - host of "Liberty City Crime Stoppers" segment * Caryn Lieberman - host of "Does It Work?" segment; also breaking news producer * Bryce Wylde - health reporter * Dr. Karl Kabasele - medical reporter * Lorne Honickman - legal specialist; also co-host of "Know Your Rights" * Jamey Tucker - tech reporter; host of "What The Tech?" segment TimeSaver Traffic * Bob Summers - traffic reporter; weekday mornings "News 24 First Edition", "News 24 DayBreak" and "News 24 In The Morning" * Amber Payie - traffic reporter; weekday afternoons "News 24 First at Four", "News 24 Live at Five" and "News 24 Live at Six" Programming Schedule for Monday, January 29th-Sunday, February 4th The Better Sex (U.S. Syndicated Game Show) Programming Schedule from July 2000 Programming Schedule from November 2009 News Operation WFTO currently broadcasts 67 Hours of news programming each week, one of the highest amounts in the Liberty City DMA alone. In addition to news programming, WFTO produces Your Voice. Your City, a Sunday morning public affairs program that airs at 10 am; Sports Blitz Sunday, a sports-related program airing Sunday Nights at 11:30 pm; and Know Your Rights, a phone-in show discussing certain legal topics which airs Sunday nights at 10:30 pm. WFTO produces a one hour long 9pm newscast for it's sister station, WTEE titled WTEE News at Nine. It originates from the WFTO studios at Victor Willis Plaza in Liberty City. WFTO operates a Bell LongRanger 206L newsgathering helicopter titled "Chopper 24". WFTO operates two, live, local radars at their station: LIVE StormTrak Doppler First Fury Radar and KRYPTON Live Doppler One Million. The first of which is supplied by Advanced Design Corporation and has been in use since 2001 and the latter being a Baron Serviceslive doppler radar, originally installed in 2011; then upgraded in Fall 2014 to contain Dual-Pol capabilities, making it the only station in Liberty City to have a live, dual-polarimetric doppler radar. WFTO also relies on a data feed from the National Weather Service NEXRAD radar located at Francis International Airport. WFTO currently has a partnership with Berfield/Willis-owned Axum Radio Group to provide hourly news and weather updates to it's stations. WFTO also simulcasts the audio portion of it's wall-to-wall severe weather coverage on these stations as well. Early Years and Today For the first several years as a station, WFTO's news operation wasn't a huge success, usually ranking 7th in the Nielsen ratings behind WLIX (ABN), WEHK (NBC), WLIB (CBS), WLFO (FOX), WELC (ABC), WLCT (The WB) in that order. However in the mid to late 2000's, news director Jeff Inglewood was brought in and made drastic changes to the news station by employing a harder emphasis on news reporting and by adding more hours dedicated to news programs. This in turn caused ratings to increase dramatically from where they were at when they started the operation. During the February 2015 Nielsen Sweeps period, WFTO ranked 4th behind long dominant stations WLIX (ABN), WEHK (FOX), and WLIB (ABC) in that order. StormRover WFTO, WTEE and WRBL are the only stations in Liberty City that currently operate a news vehicle specifically meant for storm chasing. The vehicle, named StormRover, has an on board laptop with NEXRAD radar and hyper local GPS software, 3 NOAA weather radios, 2 handheld CB radios, dash mounted HAM radio, dash mounted HD GoPro camera, weather sensors, 1080p PTZ 360 degree camera, 2 scrolling LED message lights displaying weather information, flashing amber lights and a 40” water resistant flat screen television in the back of the vehicle. When the vehicle is in operation, it is followed by a WFTO ENG truck in order for live shots to be sent back to the station and sent out over the airwaves. StormLab Weather Action Day WFTO is one of many stations in the US and one of the very few in Liberty City that will declare a “StormLab Weather Action Day” if the weather in the Liberty City metropolitan area is considered very threatening, severe and will cause high impact on life and property. These “StormLab Weather Action Days” usually will occur whenever there is severe weather (tornadoes, supercells, squall lines), winter weather (snow/ice storms, blizzards), tropical weather (hurricanes, tropical storms), heat waves, etc. affecting the Liberty City area. Digital Television On September 12, 2017, it was publicly announced that WFTO was participating in the FCC's digital repack, becoming the first of Berfield/Willis' stations to do so, and would change digital channel positions from digital channel 57 to digital channel 24. It was also announced that WFTO had entered into a channel sharing agreement with sister station WRBL (channel 4) would share it's new digital channel position with WRBL as the latter had recently sold it's spectrum to the FCC for an undisclosed amount. Logo History New wfto by davd.png|WFTO's current logo October 2017-present WFTO new.png|Logo used from September 2016-October 2017 WFTO-0.PNG|Logo used from June 2015-September 2016 WFTO Logo 2.PNG|Logo used from January 2011-June 2015 WTFO News 24.png|WFTO News 24 logo from 2010-2017 WFTO Logo from early 2000s.PNG|Logo used from 2003-2011 WFTO Logo 1999-2003.PNG|Logo used from 1999-2003 Other Images Wftoeastest1999.png|Beeep. Beeep. Beeep. Beeep. Beep. Beep. Beep. (Circa May 1999) Super24comedymarathon.png|WFTO's "COMEDY MARATHON" promo from 2001. Livedoppler.png|KRYPTON Live Doppler One Million Logo Stormtrak.png|Live StormTrak Doppler First Fury Radar Stormfind.png|MAX HD StormFind Radar Logo Stormrover.png|StormRover Logo LiveDoppler24.png|LIVE Double Doppler MAX 3D Logo WFTO Hourly ID Byline.png|WFTO Hourly ID Byline (December 2015) as seen on an episode of Dr. Phil WFTO hourly id byline updated 2016.JPG|WFTO Hourly ID Byline (September 2016) as seen on an episode of Dr. Phil Wfto logo id.jpeg|WFTO Logo Bug as seen on an episode of The Andy Griffith Show Wfto logo bug id.JPG|WFTO Logo Bug as seen on an episode of Forensic Files WFTO Screengrab.png|WFTO News 24 Breaking News Lower Third Screengrab (Circa 2016) Timeandtemperaturewfto.JPG|Time and Temperature ID (September 2016) Chopper 24 HD.png|Chopper 24 HD Logo Wfto2016.png|WFTO Station ID 2016; "(middle-age male announcer) You're Watching WFTO-TV, News 24! A Berfield/Willis Original Station! Celebrating 20 Years of the Best!" News2paidadvertisement.png|WFTO Paid Programming Disclaimer November 2016 WFTO schedule bumper 2016.jpg|WFTO Schedule Bumper November 2016 Wfto24happyholidays2016.png|WFTO Holiday Bumper ID December 2016 News24.png|WFTO "In The Morning" February 2017 bumper. WFTO Facebook Hourly ID.JPG|WFTO Facebook Hourly ID Stormlabnews24.png|WFTO StormLab Weather Action Day Bumper ID 2017 ("Thunderstorms") WFTO EyeOpener bumper.png|WFTO bumper for the upcoming Dorado-produced morning show "EyeOpener" August 2017 wfto eyeopener bumper 2.PNG|WFTO "EyeOpener" bumper ID from August 2017 Wfto weather app.PNG|WFTO weather app icon. (Also used on WFTO's weather social media pages) wfto screengrab.JPG|WFTO lower-third screengrab from September 2017 Steve wfto new logo.PNG|WFTO logo bug as seen on an episode of "Steve" koth screengrab.JPG|WFTO Severe Weather Ticker (December 2017) shutdown showdown.PNG|Screengrab during Facebook Live Special Report on Impending Government Shutdown (January 19, 2018) Newscast Titles 24 NewsPulse (1998-2006) * 24 NewsPulse @ Ten (1998-2006) * 24 NewsPulse Morning Edition (2000-2006) * 24 NewsPulse @ Six (2004-2006) 24News (2006-2010) * 24News Morning Edition (2006-2010) * 24News Live @ Noon (2006-2010) * 24News First @ Four (2006-2010) * 24News Live @ Five (2006-2010) * 24News Live @ Six (2006-2010) * 24News Live @ Ten (2006-2010) * 24News Weekend (2007-2010) News 24 (2010-Present) * News 24 First Edition (2010-Present) * News 24 DayBreak (2010-Present) * News 24 In The Morning (2010-Present) * News 24 Live at Noon (2010-Present) * News 24 First at Four (2010-Present) * News 24 Live at Five (2010-Present) * News 24 Live at Six (2010-Present) * News 24 Live at Ten (2010-Present * News 24 Live at Eleven (2010-2017) * The Night Team (2017-present) Station Branding History * 1996-2003 Super 24! * 2003-2015 WFTO * 2015-2016 The 'FTO 24 * 2016-Present WFTO 24 Ownership History * 1996-2015 Willis Communications, Inc. * 2015-Present Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation News Music Packages 1998-2006 Impact (V.1, V.2, V.3, V.4, V.5) (615 Music) 2004-Present Production Music: Complete Coverage (Megatrax) (Theme for TimeSaver Traffic updates in the mornings) 2006-2010 Lighthouse (360 Music) 2008-present Production Music: Industry (The Music Bakery) (Theme for Your Voice. Your City) 2008-present Streaming News (Cue11) (Theme for Sports Blitz Sunday) 2010-2017 Right Here, Right Now (615 Music) 2010-present Propulsion V.1 (615 Music) (Theme for News 24 First Edition and DayBreak) 2017-present News Music Package II (Van Gogh Productions) (Theme for TimeSaver Traffic updates in the afternoons and evenings) 2017-present Revolution (Gari Music) 2017-present WSVN 2001 News Package (Chris Crane) (Theme for The Night Team) Station Slogan History * "Super 24! The Best in Entertainment!" ''(1996-1999) * ''"Super 24: Liberty's SuperStation" (1999-2003) * ''"WFTO. We've got your Laughs!" ''(2003-2006) * ''"We are You. We are WFTO/Liberty City" ''(2006-2015) * ''"We are You. We are The 'FTO 24/Liberty City" ''(2015-2016) * ''"#WeStandWithWDBJ" ''(August 28th, 2015-October 4th, 2015) * ''"#PrayersForParis" ''(November 13th, 2015-December 13th, 2015) * ''"#WFTO20" ''(2016) News Slogan History * ''"Coverage You Can Count On!" ''(1998-2004) * ''"First. Fast. Live." ''(2004-2010) * ''"Fast. Accurate. Dependable." ''(2010-2015) * ''"Liberty's Only LIVE, Million Watt Radar. Only on News 24!" ''(2014-Present) * ''"More News. More Often." ''(2016-2017) * ''"Liberty's Breaking News" ''(2017-present) Website History * 1996-Present wfto.com Category:Channel 24 Category:Independent stations Category:Independent Stations Category:Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation Category:Television stations established in 1996 Category:Liberty State